Thanksgiving 2011: One More Stop in the Cove

Thanksgiving 2011, Part One is here...Part Two is here...Part Three is here...Part Four is here.  Will I ever finish this unintended series?!  ;-)  I always think I'll have more blogging time than I really end up having, so I never get as far with this as I plan to.  Oh, well, I am utterly certain that in years to come, I will be SO grateful that I took the time to document this trip...even if  it did take me "forever" to do it!  :)

During our trips to the farm while my grandparents still owned it, there was something that Jeff wanted to do but never did.  

See this hill?  See that dark area near the top?  It's a cave opening...

...and Jeff, being the explorer-type that he is, had always wanted to climb up there and go inside, just to see what might be in there.  I, being the I'll-keep-my-feet-on-the-ground type that I am, had never had any compelling desire to climb up there and go inside, because I thought I knew what might be in there.  Bears!  Or snakes!  Or some kind of terrible creature!  Who would want to go poking around and find something like that?!

He would...

...that wild man that I married would go up there.  And so he did, the day before Thanksgiving, wearing cowboy boots, of all things, which didn't do much to increase his traction on the wet, leafy cliff.

Here's how it happened: after we had looked around at the farm and were getting ready to leave, I wanted us to drive down the Wallbash to the bridge where we used to walk; and after we turned around and were heading back to the main road, Jeff stopped suddenly in the middle of the road, got out of the van, and started up the hill.

 All of us crowded over to the windows in the side of the van facing him, so that we could see his daring exploit...and watch as he slid down the hill and broke his wrist...which didn't happen, but I feared it might.

 He used tree trunks and branches and vines and a rope that someone previously had tied there and anything else he could grab, I imagine, to reach his goal of making it to the top and going into the cave.

 Fortunately for those of us who were waiting anxiously in the van, he didn't stay inside for too long before coming back out and carefully descending the hill.  Guess what?  He didn't break his wrist coming back down the cliff either!

As soon as he got into the van, we peppered him with questions:  what was it like in there? how big was the cave? did he see anything in it? could he stand up all the way? how wide was it?  He told us that it was tall, not wide, but it extended for quite a ways, definitely further than what he could see, even using his small but powerful flashlight (which I didn't realize he had with him).  He said that he'd like to go there again someday and explore it more thoroughly, to look for arrowheads or other signs of life in it.  He also told us about the one artifact he found in his quick exploration.  It was...

...a Pepsi can.  ;-)

And with that, we finally said goodbye to the farm, continued our drive through the Cove, passed through Mercersburg, met up with the highway again, and set off for the remainder of our journey north on our wonderful Thanksgiving trip!